Finding Our Way Home
by Fudaanshi
Summary: Kuramochi, Miyuki, and Sawamura, three Seido guild members, end up on an uncharted and unknown island after an encounter with their rival guild, Inashirou. However, in the middle of the vast forest that covers the island is an ancient city. Sitting toward the back of it is a dungeon with the name Heartfell written above it. They believe this is their only way back and enter.


_**Finding Our Way Back**_

-|- Chapter 01 -|-

Kuramochi

The last thing Kuramochi wanted to do today was fight the undead, especially ones that could use fire. Fire, the base element of the Draconian and Reptilian species, was normally found in tropical and desert areas, or found as a sub-element of some monsters in the forests.

"Damn zombies," Kuramochi muttered as he whipped black blood off his short sword. He inspected the silver blade and tilted it to make sure there was not a spect left before tossing the rag into the air and listening to it vanish in a small cloud of smoke with a 'puff'.

"Miyuki," Kuramochi called over to the white robed Elementalist, "didn't you say zombies had an extreme weakness to fire?" He sheathed his sword and stood up from the headstone he was sitting on before walking over to Miyuki.

"They normally should," Miyuki answered him. "According to my professors at the Academy and the Bestiary, the undead," Miyuki muttered something that sounded like 'not zombies' to Kuramochi's ears before continuing, "are born from beneath the ground, meaning they have a natural resistance to ice, ground, and dark elements. Sometimes their attacks are inbound with those elements as well. But the undead here-"

"Used fire." Kuramochi finished for him, stopping a few feet in front of Miyuki. The Assassin knitted his fingers behind his head, causing the black and red lined bandana to snag up his forehead a bit, pushing his green hair further back.

Miyuki sighed, "I'll send a message to one of my professors and see what he says." And swiped his fingers through the air and began poking what seemed to be at nothing as he spoke.

Kuramochi suppressed a groan whenever Miyuki mentioned the Academy or his professors. The Academy he was referring to was the Academy of Arcane and Magical Studies located in the Capital of their continuet. Only the best of the best mage path students were able to gain entry to the academy and study there, for free. It made Kuramochi's second-rate Stealth Path training school look like burnt bread next to a plate of perfectly cooked steak. But he shoved down the groans and protests he would of made because, whenever Miyuki talked about the Academy, he sounded as if he were talking about his actual home and not some school.

As Miyuki was sending the message, Kuramochi glanced over his shoulder in search of their third companion, Sawamura. The Knight was kneeling in front of the stone statue of a god-like figure with his hands together in prayer, or it would have been a statue if Sawamura had not cut through it like butter with his sword when attacking the Boss.

"Oi, Sawamura, you coming?" He called over his shoulder. "We need to get back to Shirono, right?" He directed the question at Miyuki with a raised eyebrow. The two of them would normally go off and start farming for resources after a Boss battle, giving their health points and mana, or stamina, time to recover, along with time for their skills to cool down.

"My professor said he'd never heard of an Lich King that could grant the power of Fire to his undead minions." Miyuki said while swiping the air in front of him and switching his staff from his left hand to his right. "We should head back to Shirono, the Town Chief, what's his name, should be waiting for us. Did you get any good drops, Kuramochi?" Miyuki said after a beat, almost condescendingly.

Kuramochi narrowed his eyes and cursed under his breath before turning and walking toward the dirt path that lead into the surrounding forest. "Nothin' but a useless chunk of rock." A beat later, Kuramochi heard the rustling of armor running behind him and Sawamura was at his side, looking down at him with his puppy-dog brown eyes.

"Skyit ore? Did you get Skyit ore?!" He asked, excitement filling his voice and eyes.

Kuramochi stopped walking and eyed the Knight up and down, wondering if he should tell him the truth or not. He decided not to.

"No," He said shortly, "I'm going to go scout ahead." Kuramochi rushed forward and disappeared in a blur beside Sawamura. He landed on a tree branch a couple yards in front of his two companions and smirked before swiping his right index and middle finger downward to open the menu.

Immediately after performing the action, a translucent black screen ten inches wide and and seven inches tall appeared before him. The left side of the menu took up three fourths of the provided space. His name, the time and date, class and level, health points, stamina, and experience sat in the top left corner while a mini-map of the surrounding area sat below it. His currently active effects, buffs being in green and debuffs and damage over times in red, sat in the upper right corner while his active quests sat below it. The right side of the screen held the navigation menu that took up the remaining fourth of the black menu. The navigation section was divided into seven tabs: Status, Class, Skills, Inventory, Bestiary, Quests, Friends.

Kuramochi tapped the Inventory tab and new, smaller, window window appeared. At the top sat the title 'Inventory', in bold, white letters. Below that were two sorting options: Relevance and Item. Kuramochi hit relevance and tapped 'new' from the dropdown menu and watched as the items unsorted themselves from A-Z to new. It took a moment and Kuramochi saw the item 'Skyit Ore' with new written in thin orange letters next to it. He selected the ore and a new window, the same size as the last, opened before him.

'Skyit Ore' sat at the top in bold, white letters, and below sat the items rarity rating at four and a half stars. Below that was an image of the white and blue speckled ore slowly spinning clockwise. The items description sat below the image, but Kuramochi ignored it and tapped the image. The three open windows minimized themselves into small grey boxes and floated to the left of his vision while a much larger image of the ore filled the space in front of him.

The white and blue ore still spun clockwise, but this time white lines jutted out of it at near random spots with white boxes at the end of them. Kuramochi knew from experience that the white boxes held important, and also useless, information about the item. The same applied to the bestiary, but then, he figured, the information in the boxes would be more useful because they gave hints about weak points and attack patterns. Kuramochi tapped one of the white boxes that was pointing to one of the larger, and lighter, blue spots that decorated the white ore.

The image stopped spinning and zoomed in slightly on the spot while the box expanded and text started to appear:

'The blue spots on the Skyit contain highly condensed magical energies that have gathered over the years, or eons, of the ores formation. Only high-level blacksmiths can harvest the spots on the Skyit and use them to forge powerful, almost God-level, weapons, according to the Academy of Arcane and Magical Studies….'

Kuramochi ignored the rest of it and waved his hand through the image, causing it to vanish.

Kuramochi figured Sawamura wanted the ore to craft a weapon with, he'd told them that the entire way here. Sawamura bragged about his blacksmith level and how he would be able to craft them legendary items one day. Maybe that's why he wanted the ore so badly, so he could craft something magical for Miyuki. Kuramochi assumed it was for Miyuki, at least. The loud ass Knight never stopped talking when he was around the mage, and never stopped asking Miyuki to spare with him either.

Kuramochi felt a burning in the back right corner of his mind, almost as if someone was trying to pry into his thoughts and find him. The Assassin quickly lept forward a branch, drew the shorter of the two daggers from his back, and activated his Vision, cancelling his smell to strengthen it. As an Assassin, Kuramochi had the opportunity to learn 'Sense Strength' skills, they were skills that allowed him to heighten one of his senses while cancelling another. He'd only learned Vision and Hearing though, he didn't see much use for the other three.

Everything around him started to turn shades of white, blue, orange, and red as his Vision started picking up on heat signatures around him. About two miles southwest of his location sat five red spots, all but one was wearing armor that gave off a faint blue color. Kuramochi brought his fist holding the dagger closer to his chest as he turned Hearing on and cancelled his taste, trying to hear if they the figures were saying anything.

"They can't be that far ahead. Maybe a mile or two at most." Said one of them.

"A mile or two?! Someone just bring them to me! I want to fight that damn Kazuya now!" Said a second voice.

"Me-" Started a third voice.

"Wait! One of them is spying on us!" Said the first one.

"Wha-" Began the second.

Kuramochi's hearing was cut off as all the figures suddenly disappeared, as if they'd never been there.

'A cloaking skill,' Kuramochi thought. His mind was running through all the Stealth Path skills he knew of but only two came to mind: Vanish and Camouflage. Kuramochi knew the Assassin's Vanish, it was a combat skill used for performing backstabs and flanks, but it could also be used to make quick escapes in order to recover lost health or stamina before rejoining the battle. Camouflage was a skill that allowed the user to blend into their surroundings for a limited amount of time and have an eighty-five percent increase to doing a critical attack if the enemy is unaware of them. But that skill only belonged to the Ninja class. But neither skill effected anyone but the user of it. Kuramochi gritted his teeth and made a mental note to ask Miyuki if any mage path classes could use a cloaking skill.

What bothered him the most was that a cloaking skill could not hide from the Assassin's strengthened senses. It was impossible, Kuramochi knew that. He'd had the skill used against him many times at the training school, and in sparring matches with the other Seido guild teams. Not a single one could hide the user's body heat, only their presence to others on the battlefield.

He shoved the event into the back of mind and focused on the surrounding area, balancing his Vision and Hearing evenly while maintaining his other senses. He could hear the chirping of birds in the clouds above him and the crunching of leaves under a deers hoof near the Shirono walls. From there, he could hear and make out shapes of citizens as the browsed what looked to an open-air market while guards milled about, probably on the look out of petty thieves because the town was too far away from any major guild to bring about trouble within its walls.

Sighing, the Assassin leapt forward another branch as his two party members started to catch up behind him, talking loudly and happily about the four hour battle against the ten foot tall, green skinned Lich King they'd just fought.

Kuramochi kept his distance in front of Miyuki and Sawamura, making sure to keep them within his Vision's range. He kept to the trees and spotted study looking branches in the lower parts of the canopies. Though they were only about two miles from Shirono, Kuramochi figured there might still be lingering enemies from the Lich King's 'Animate' spell. He'd spotted a few undead deer and rabbits, but quickly killed them with a throwing knife. Their low HP couldn't stand his long-range damage stat.

Kuramochi jumped from the tree and landed without a sound onto the ground in front of the the cities open gate. He used his Vision to check how far the other two were behind him, one-hundred feet, and then turned the skill off. He did the same with his Hearing and turned to notice a small boy, maybe ten or eleven, running toward him. He was dressed in white priest robes and wore a silver necklace with a cross on it around his neck. His unruly black hair was shoved under a white cap that had a gold imprint of a cross at its center.

"You the Chief's son?" Kuramochi asked, keeping his expression nutral. Only Miyuki had met with the High Priest, who also resided as the city's Chief, before they left for their mission. Sawamura and Kuramochi were ordered to stay out of the city to help protect it incase any of the undead tried get in or wonder by.

"Yes!" He said happily, his black eyes flashing with interest as he scanned Kuramochi body up and down. His eyes darted from the short sword at his side, to the daggers on his back, and finally resting on his face again. "I'm Shun, I was told to meet you here. Are you part of the party that the Elementalist brought to go defeat the Undead King with?"

"It wasn't an Undead King," Kuramochi told Shun, "It was a Lich King, one of the Undead Kings minions, but a very powerful opponent." Especially if he could buff his minions with Fire-enhancements. "I'm Kuramochi." He stuck out his hand and Shun took it, shaking it before letting go and crossing his arms in front of him.

It was normal to introduce oneself with their name and class, but Kuramochi knew from experience that people didn't enjoy meeting an Assassin, or really anyone that aligned themselves with the Stealth Path, unless they were an Archer. People did enjoy meeting those that followed the Mage and Warrior Path. Miyuki, an Elementalist, followed the Offensive branch of the Mage Path, while Sawamura, a Knight, followed the Offensive-Tank Branch of the Warrior Path. Though Sawamura made a horrible Tank, needing to be healed every couple minutes and draining Miyuki's mana in the process.

"Hey, Kuramochi, are you," Shun trailed off as if looking for another way to word his question, "a Thief?"

Kuramochi blinked twice at the question before shaking his head. "Nope, kid, try something bloodier." He smirked and crossed his arms in front of his chest. He wore a thick black leather tunic that was covered by a thinner, sleeveless, black leather jacket, the hood left down around his neck. Beneath the tunic was a thin layer of cloth that kept the leather from rubbing against his bare skin. His pants were made of the same thick black leather material that his tunic was, but they were cut shorter around his ankles, the hem of them sitting about five inches above his ankles. He wore dark brown boots that came up to the end of his pants, the boots use to make noise when he walked around at first, but he got them permanently enchanted with 'Silence' from one of the rare wondering caravans that visited a town near the Seido guild house once.

"A-assassin?" The boy guessed, and Kuramochi turned his head away to avoid looking at his face, knowing he would look horrified at him.

"Yup," Kuramochi said, crossing his hands behind his head, elbows pointed toward the sky. He watched as the two small specks that were Miyuki and Sawamura slowly walked closer. They were probably fifty feet away now.

There was a small gasp from behind him, and Kuramochi turned to see Shun staring at him, but not with horror or fear, but interest and delight. "I've never met an Assassin before. I've read stories about them, though. And I've always wanted to see one in person!" Shun smiled at him and Kuramochi tilted his head slightly to one side, looking down at the boy with confusion.

"I wanted to be an Assassin, to experience the training and thrill of it, but my father, the High Priest, wouldn't even let me study anything related to the Stealth Path, saying it was sin to think about stuff like that. He called it killing from the shadows and slinking into the darkness the Dark Arts. But he also said that no son of his would be anything other than a Priest."

"You were forced to be a Priest then? Stuck in the background, healing and praying to gods to save your team?" The kid peaked Kuramochi's interest a little, he'd heard about people being forced into a Class before, but never really heard any of their stories or experiences.

"Oh, we aren't those kinds of Priest, the battle ones. We do work for the holy gods and study the Revival Magic and Healing Arts, crafting potions and elixirs for others to use."

Kuramochi inclined his head and nodded, he opened his mouth to ask one more question but was interrupted.

"Making friends, Kuramochi?" Miyuki walked over to him and slung an arm around his shoulder. "I thought I was your only friend." He smirked at the Assassin and turned to smile at the kid. "Can you take us to your dad, we've done what he asked us to."

"Ah, yes, Miyuki and party, and I can take you there right now." The kid glanced at Kuramochi again before turning and walking off down the dirt path into the city.

"Miyuki! Don't go running away like that," the Knight complained as he bent over to and breathed deeply. He swiped his fingers in the air and poked furosly at the air before standing up straight again. A moment later his armor blurred off himself and revealed tan and well defined body before a simple white cotton shirt and brown leather pants covered him.

Kuramochi felt his breath catch for a moment, then untangled himself from Miyuki and smacked Sawamura in the back of head. "Don't do that in public, idiot!"

"Kuramochiii!" Sawamura complained. "Miyuki, he's hitting me, again!" He turned toward Miyuki for a helping hand, but the Elementalist was already walking away from them, a hand waving in the air behind him.

"You probably deserved it." He laughed to himself and continued walking, not looking back to see Sawamura's fallen face.

All the noise Kuramochi heard from the city as he was scouting ahead turned out to be the open-air market located in the middle of Shirono. The city was roughly a seven-thousandth of Kochyo, with a population of just over sixty-two thousand. Compared to Kochyo, the city was small enough that Kuramochi would rather call it a village.

There are many open-air markets Kochyo, but the atmosphere felt different form this one. The people here looked happier as they milled about and looked at the colorful fruit, the greenery of vegetables, and the freshly butchered meat the stalls had for sale. Spread throughout the market were also weaponry and armor stalls, salesman shouting their wares and prices, competing in friendly competition for customers. Kuramochi narrowed his eyes at the a couple of the stalls and activated his Vision and Hearing. He zoned in on a single stall selling steal swords that were crafted by a blacksmith out of the Capital. Kuramochi cocked his head slightly and looked at the sword on display, using a Shadow Path skill called 'Glace', he was able to look at the weapon and it's stats, and who crafted it.

He clicked his tongue in disgust and canceled his skills after checking out a few more vendors. Almost all of the items they were selling were fakes, some of them replicas made to look like the weapon, armor, or jewelry that was sold in the major cities.

"Corrupt market," He muttered as he turned around to face the three people walking in front of him, only to run straight into Sawamura's back.

The Knight turned around in surprise and looked at Kuramochi. The shock on his face was replaced by confusion as he looked down at Kuramochi. "Pay attention to where you're going, Kuramochi." He patted Kuramochi on the shoulder and the Assassin shrugged his hand off.

"I was spying on the market, I didn't expect you to come to a quick stop." He crossed his arms in front of him and stepped up beside Sawamura as they both looked over to where Miyuki stood with Shun a few feet in front of them. "Where are we?" Kuramochi asked, leaning Sawamura shoulder.

Kuramochi snuck a glance at Sawamura's profile and saw the tightening of his jaw muscles. The light in his eyes seemed to dim and fire seemed to roar behind them. Kuramochi quickly looked away and noticed a white robed man with a white and red accented Mitre atop his head, a gold staff topped with a blue gem in one hand, walk out of the double doors of the stone church standing before them.

"That's the High Priest." Sawamura said through clenched teeth.

"What about him has you all rallied up?" Kuramochi whispered. Out of habit, he did another search of the city with his Vision, but noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

"He just.. feels wrong."

"Explain." Kuramochi zoned his Vision and Hearing onto the High Priest, Sawamura's voice became a muffle in the background, but Kuramochi made sure he could still make out what the Knight was saying.

Whenever Sawamura felt that something was off, he was usually right about it.

"I can't really explain it. Miyuki was talking about him on our way back. How he spoke perfectly without a single inflection or accent in his voice. How he stood and presented himself. Hoe he only wanted to meet with Miyuki and not us." Sawamura mumbled the words, trying to piece together his thoughts and make them understandable. Kuramochi had to applaud him for it, he was an idiot afterall.

"He wanted us to wait outside to help fight any of the undead might have wondered near the city." Kuramochi told him, repeating what Miyuki had told them earlier.

"But there weren't any undead, Ku-"

"Shut up for a minute," Kuramochi whispered, concentrating on the conversation happening before him.

"Welcome back, Miyuki. I take you defeated the Undead King that was animating the dead an-"

"Lich King, High Priest." Miyuki corrected him, his nonchalance starting to show in his posture as he put a hand on his hip. "The Undead King lives underground in the Barren Forest in the eastern part of the continuet. The Lich King falls about three ranks below him, making him a minion of the King." Miyuki said offhandedly, as if it was everyday knowledge everyone should know. "But yes, we've dispatched the Lich King and the undead should no longer pose a threat to your city."

"Thank you, warriors-"

"We aren't all warriors, High Priest." Kuramochi felt his eye twitch as Miyuki continued to interrupt the man. "Sawamura is the only warrior in our party today." Miyuki waved a hand in the air in Sawamura's direction and poked at the air till a rolled up piece of paper fell into his hand. "But I do believe you mentioned on the quest reward that the item would be an unique Legendary-Item. I would like to see this item and see if it is authentic, if you don't mind." Miyuki handed the scroll over to the High Priest, a small smile curling on his lips.

"Of course, Mage. Shun," The Priest didn't turn to face his son as he spoke, but Kuramochi noticed how the boy straightened and try to shift away from his father. "Go into my office, the reward is in the second drawer on the left side of the desk. Be a good boy and go get it _now._ " The Priests eyes flashed red before fading back to their brown color.

Kuramochi eyes widened and he felt Sawamura twitch next to him. Instinctively, Kuramochi grabbed Sawamura's arm and dug his fingers in the Knight's arm, causing him to grunt in pain and turn to face the Assassin.

"Don't do anything rash. We don't want to cause a scene here, in a city that our guild just allied with." Kuramochi said through gritted teeth. He was glad he grabbed Sawamura's arm, if he hadn't, he would have grabbed one of the daggers on his back and flung it at the man.

"But-" Sawamura looked over at him, fire burning in his eyes. His hands were clenched into fists and his knuckles were turning white.

"Don't." Kuramochi told him shortly, looking him directly in the eye. Sawamura swallowed then nodded, Kuramochi let go of his arm and studied the man as he started to speak to Miyuki about something.

Possison. It normally happened during dungeons or Raids, where the enemy boss would brainwash one the party members and have them attack their own teammates. But Kuramochi never saw anyone outside of a dungeon or Raid Zone possessed. He narrowed his eyes, but continued to study the man, making mental notes of the people around him, trying to locate the spell casters position and take him as soon as possible.

Shun came running down the steps and stopped beside his father and presented a scroll bound by a dark blue ribbon with a black wax seal on it to Miyuki. The Elementalist took it graciously and Kuramochi watched as a screen appeared before him with the items name, at the top sat 'Quest Reward' in bold black letters against the light grey background. Below it sat the item, experience gain, and gold they all just received.

 _\+ 1 Lilith's Wrath (Miyuki Kazuya)_

 _+12,650 EXP_

 _\+ 5,890 GOLD_

Kuramochi ignored the experience gain, knowing he still needed a lot more before he'd level up again. The gold didn't bother him either, he rarely bought anything and used what he got from drops and farming for his main income. The item peeked his interest and he tapped it, bringing up the items menu in the translucent black screen of his menu.

The item had a five-star rating and Ultra Rare sat next to the items name at the top. He skimmed the flavor text, the text describing the object's creation and lore, and found it's usage and effects.

"Teleportation? One use only," Kuramochi muttered as he read the rest of it. "Transports the user and anyone in their party to a location of the user's wish. One use only." He whispered under his breath as he closed the menu tapped the 'X' in the top right corner of the Quest Reward screen.

"I'm sorry, good Priest, but we must be on our way. We got a message from our guild leader earlier asking us to return with haste for a Raid meeting." Miyuki was telling the Priest as Kuramochi looked over at him.

"What's goin' on?" He asked Sawamura.

"That guy just asked Miyuki if we would like to stay in the Church and leave tomorrow morning." Sawamura summed up for him.

"Ah, I don't want to be in this town a moment longer." As if hearing him, Miyuki turned around and walked their direction.

"Let's go," then he said under his breath, "I want to get far away from here."

Kuramochi and Sawamura nodded and followed the Elementalist as he they walked toward the north gate of the city.

Once they were outside the city walls and far away enough that the guards wouldn't be able to eavesdrop, Kuramochi asked, "What was that about?"

"The Priest was no longer possessed after handing over the item." Miyuki responded immediately. "It might have been what was possessing him."

"Do you think that means one of us is possessed now?" Kuramochi asked, glancing between Miyuki and Sawamura.

"I don't feel any different," Sawamura looked over his shoulder to where Kuramochi was walking behind them. "Do you?"

"We aren't possessed. I placed an enchantment on the scroll before we left." Miyuki said, spinning the scroll in his hand. "The enchant locks the effects of the object till it is removed. I figured Chris could look at it and see what's going on."

"Uh huh," Kuramochi nodded at Miyuki, he kept the disbelief off his face as they walked further down the path.

Shirono was a city located in the middle of a vast forest south of Kochyo by twenty miles. And as the party walked further down the path, the trees started to grow taller and their upper canopies started to cover the road, shading it from the orange light of the evening sun handing in the sky. Kuramochi noticed animals keeping further back behind the trees and bushes, hiding the party in the shadows as to not be hunted. But they'd came prepared for a night out in the forest and didn't need to hunt down the forest's inhabitants.

"Let's set up camp over there," Kuramochi pointed what looked like randomly between two trees. But with his Vision, he saw a clear spot just thirty feet beyond the two trees that was large enough for them to lay out their bundles and make a fire.

"Between the trees? Kuramochi, your eyesight might be off." Miyuki joked, smirking at the Assassin.

"Bastard, I mean beyond the trees." Kuramochi glared at Miyuki before patting Sawamura on the shoulder, "Make us a path, Sawamura."

Sawamura looked back at him, confusion written on his face, but did as Kuramochi told him. He swung his sword and cut off low hanging branches that would cause them problems, but left enough of the vegetation alone so no one would assume they entered this way.

A handful of minutes later put them at the clearing. Sunlight bleeding through the leaves and spotting the ground in different shades of orange and red as the evening sun started to set and dusk took over.

Night soon fell and they rolled out their bundles and made a small fire. Miyuki snapped his fingers, red sparks flying from the contact, and a small fire started burning the leaves. Kuramochi sat cross legged on his bed and kept watch as the Knight and Elementalist stripped down and changed out of their armor into something more comfortable.

"I'll take first watch." Kuramochi stated looking at them both for an objection, not neither said a thing. He was still wary about the figures he'd seen earlier. How they just vanished from his Vision. "I'll wake you for the next shift," Kuramochi nodded to Miyuki, who nodded back before turning over to face away from the fire. "Sleep tight." He muttered under his breath as he turned off his sense to focus on seeing and hearing. The forest suddenly became a blossoming of white, blue, and red as the sounds around him became crisp and clear to his ears. There was a lake about two miles east of them and Kuramochi figured he'd go there to bathe tomorrow morning. But it never came.

As Kuramochi was about to wake Miyuki for his shift, an arrow shot right past him and into the embers of the dying fire, igniting it in blue tinted white flames. In an instant, Kuramochi was on his feet, both daggers in his hand as he shouted for Sawamura and Miyuki to wake up. But it was already too late.

Four figures in white and red accented armor formed a square around them, the fifth one, the one who shot the arrow, was about five yards away.

Miyuki jumped to his feet and his white mage robe and staff popped into existence. He muttered a spell and Kuramochi saw a green circle appear their campsite. A Protection Barrier that everyone in the Mage Path learn. It prevented anyone and anything from entering, or leaving, till the spells duration, five minutes, ended.

Sawamura came sluggishly to his feet and looked blurry eyed around himself, taking a moment to notice the four newcomers encircling them.

"Ah, wh-what, Kuramochi?! Miyuki?!" He looked over at them and quickly got his silver and blue accented armor on before a sword and shield appeared in his hands.

"Kuramochi, how did they get so close?" Miyuki stared him down, astonishment and shock on his face. No one had ever got this close to their camp before while Kuramochi was on watch. Nothing got past his Vision, but they did.

"I don't know. They're dangerous. Watch out." Was all he said back, bringing both daggers closer to his chest, his mind rushing through all the skills he knew and what he could do dispatch the newcomers before they could deal any heavy damage to them.

"Oh come on, Kazuya. How could expect less from _my_ party?" Spoke a familiar voice, one Kuramochi and Miyuki knew. One they hated.

Narumiya Mei. Paladin of the Inashiro guild. He stood directly in front of Miyuki, a long sword held loosely in one hand. It was emitting a faint white light and Kuramochi watched as he raised it and pointed it at the barrier and swung, causing a small crack to appear in the green tinted air.


End file.
